Backwards Compatibility Broken in Affordances between 1.3.5 to 1.4.x.

In semantic versioning, there should be zero breaking changes without bumping the major version.

org.springframework.hateoas.mediatype.Affordances

Between 1.3.5 and 1.4.x the return type of afford(org.springframework.http.HttpMethod) was changed from:

org.springframework.hateoas.mediatype.Affordances.AffordanceBuilder

to:

org.springframework.hateoas.mediatype.ConfigurableAffordance

This breaks the following code:

Affordances
    .of(linkTo(method, params).withRel(relation).withAffordances(new ArrayList<>()))
    .afford(httpMethod).withName(relation.value())
    .toLink();

When the code above is compiled with 1.4.1 on the class path, then used in an application using 1.3.5, this should not break anything as the same method exists in 1.3.5 and there was no bump of the major version. But, as the return type was changed, the code crashes with method not found.

For referenced, here is a complete list of breaking changes that happened with 1.4.x:

https://diff.revapi.org/?groupId=org.springframework.hateoas&artifactId=spring-hateoas&old=1.3.5&new=1.4.1

Start with Affordances.afford(HttpMethod) and compare its 1.3.5 and 1.4.1 API signatures using the linked Revapi diff. Reproduce the provided compiled-application scenario, then verify that the public API remains binary-compatible across those versions.